outside the omni hotel. >> i don't know. they just shot somebody and he was laying in front of the omni. i was in there. there's a crowd of people. >> all of this sparked by the shooting of keith lamont scott. shot him tuesday when he didn't obey calls to drop a gun. this witness photograph appears to show a gun at scott's feet moments later. police also say they recovered a gun at the scene. family and some witnesses insist he didn't have a gun but a book instead and last few minutes, we learned city leaders are considering a curfew for tonight and reports that scott's family may see video of the deadly shooting at some point today. gabe gutierrez and tammy lithener were in the middle of it. >> reporter: we are expected to hear from city officials and just a short time, a lot of questions right now are swirling about how authorities are going

to prevent, yet, another night of violence. now, i'm standing here at the nascar hall of fame. vandals targeted this location last night. as you can see behind me, the clean-up effort has already started. this area plans to be back open for business but there are some other businesses in the downtown area, for example, bank of america and wells fargo that have told their employees to stay home today. the mayor, however, is stressing that the city is open for business. the largest city in north carolina. yesterday, the epicenter of the nationwide debate over excessive force. the protesters, things could turn ugly around 8:30 or 9:00 tonight. we were outside of the omni hotel when some of the demonstrators clashed with police. we heard a gunshot. there was a person rushed inside the omni hotel. we later learned that there was one person in critical condition rushed to the hospital and authorities say that it was a

protester versus protester violence that police did not fire a shot. now, there are lots of questions remaining right thousannow, cra about the investigation. police stresses that a gun was found at the scene and that goes against the narrative that took hold immediately following the shooting when there was a live stream on social media by a woman claiming to be mr. scott's daughter, and since then, some witnesses at the scene have said that he was simply reading a book waiting to pick up his son from the school bus and that he did not have a weapon on him. but police now say that a gun was recovered at the scene. what protesters want is that police body cam video and the dash cam video to be released. the mayor said that she will be personally reviewing it today. however, the video will not be released as of yet because it's an ongoing investigation. that doesn't sit well with many of the demonstrators here and again, we expect to hear from city officials in just a short

time about how they plan to avoid the violence for a third straight night. the governor declaring the city to be in a state of emergency bringing in the national guard. >> gabe gutierrez for us there in charlotte. tammy leitner also in the thick of the protesters. >> reporter: we just got hit with tear gas. they tear gassed this entire area. maybe 300 people protesting. downtown, things started getting out of control. it started getting violent. windows started getting broken in some of the businesses as well as some cars. police showed up in riot gear. they set off tear gas multiple times. >> tammy joins us live on the phone now. tammy, we know other reporters got roughed up as well. how are you doing this morning and what did you encounter? >> reporter: craig, our whole team is fine and i think it's important to say, this started

out as a peaceful vigil. and the protesters, they walked to a church and they had a church service and then they walked downtown. and that was when things really escalated. it was initially a peaceful crowd, and a few people incited some violence and that kind of just spread like wildfire and within a few minutes of us arriving downtown, protesters were throwing bottles. they were smashing windows at businesses. they were kicking police cars, trying to smash windows of police cars and about that time, police in riot gear were lined up and they set off tear gas and that was when the crowd started running. and it was, of course, pandemonium. i know a lot of people got hurt, trampled as people were running down the street, and from there, it just continued. it would calm down for a while and the protesters would be peaceful and we just want our message heard and what they would tell us, they were trying

to say, stop the violence. a lot of people were chanting hands up, stop the violence. a few people would incite the crowd and it would turn violent again and police would try to move everybody back, and set off tear gas. this would go on for hours. >> at one point, i was watching your work last night and it looked like there were a number of folks who formed, i think this may be video of it, civilians who had gathered together, locked arms and looked like trying to separate some of the protesters from the police. is that what was happening? >> reporter: yeah. we actually had two groups of people, craig. at one point, we had some people from a nearby church and they were stamping between the protesters and the riot police rying e trying to make sure nobody got hurt and then we had another people. we spoke with one man last night, his name was manuel and

he was standing in front of the police with riot gear. within 18 inches of them and he was standing there staring off with his hands behind his back, no show of force. we interviewed manuel as he was standing there and said, why are you doing this? he said, we're taking a stand. we don't want the violence anymore. so this is a non-violent stand we're taking and i said, manuel, you realize that if you don't move, at some point, you'll get arrested tonight or injured. he said, i'm willing to stand up for what i believe in. >> did you get the sense that last night was the end of this or did you get the sense that this is something we'll see again tonight or perhaps even the night after and the night after that? >> reporter: you know, craig, i think we'd all like to think last night was the end of it but this morning, there was a lot of damage done, and so we can only hope that people have calmed down and that it is over.

>> nbc's tammy leitner on the tone for us in charlotte, north carolina. tammy, thank you so much. stay safe down there. i want to bring in community activist, founder of the group true healing under god and he also joins me on the phone from charlotte. john, first of all, what can you tell us? i know you're close to the family. what can you tell us about keith scott's family, how they're coping today? >> right now, i just want to give a big apology to the entire city of charlotte. i know the mayor personally. i know a lot of police officers. but i also know, you know, some relatives of the ones that may have caused some of this damage. so i'm actually right now at buffalo wild wings and basically, the the windows are just busted out. so i informed the youth last night, two different audiences. got to be mindful of that. the crowd that really, not always charlotte residents but

other cities, new york or otherwise. some have their own agenda in mind when we stage rallies. i go line up at marshall park in charlotte, interlock arms like dr. king and then there's a series of speakers. what happens is that people are just so angry that they want to take matters into their own hands so a lot did not come inside the church. they separated. that would be the younger generation. and then went downtown and see what's happening today. you have businesses closed today. i think bank of america was on stand-by. i used to work at united way, the windows are busted out here. in saying that, i have to reencourage the young people. i'm 47 years old. dr. king never threw a rock in a window. he never threw a stick. those items got thrown at him. and i let them know that we also honor him naturally every year which means the steps he took brought about peace, change, and

love throughout the whole world and that's the perfect model we should choose. but unfortunately, everybody is not on that page and that's the challenge that i have and real quick, i want to tell you this. i was telling the reporter this morning, i'm caught in between two worlds, a tug of war, like a band-aid. on the left side is officers shooting down african-american males. this is our second shooting in three years. jonathan pharaoh was shot. $2.5 million given to the pharaoh family and then the other side is the young people. shooting us down and they don't care. we don't care anymore and we have nothing to lose. so i'm going to have to utilize whatever gifts i have to bring those two forces together, those two entities. and that's my biggest challenge right now today in charlotte. >> john, i get that the anger and the hurt and i know a lot of other folks get feeling left out of a system.

but how does smashing the windows or jumping on cars or ransacking businesses, how does that help anything? >> well, you know, i can right now tell you, i'll be honest in saying this. how does it help, but i can tell you, it could have been prevented. and when you find police that say, this case is under investigation and you've got a mother who has no closure right now in reference to why her husband was shot down four times and that's not a reason to riot and loot but dr. king said it best. here's a quote. a community feels as though they don't have a strong stake in the community will unconsciously try to destroy it. and i think what happened is you got it here. people who really believe nothing's going to happen and point at hand, let's say a large group of people in my community feel as though george zimmerman should have went to jail and he

didn't. whether that's right or wrong and i trust in the criminal justice system and i respect the the criminal justice system and then you look at darren willson who shot michael brown down, one of the bullets landed in his eye and he punched the officer in the car. doesn't justify anything but deep down in the crevice of the hearts of our fellow people, young men at 18 years of age, we see nothing happened. this is not just a reason to riot and loot, but the pain in that silent killer not addressing that is what happened. because think about it. somebody got shot. four times. they told me three days ago, i got there an hour after the shooting and said, john, he does the same routine. sits in the car, reads a book, disabled. don't think the media is telling that and -- >> john, your last point is very important here because the police continue to insist that he had a gun. they continue to maintain that

once the video comes out, a lot of folks have second thoughts about a lot of this. are you certain that he did not have a gun? >> you know, what, i do not. i've never debated the gun whether he had a gun or not, but i'm going with my gut. and my gut would tell me this. i don't think a father would try to put his son in harm's way if he knew he's getting ready to get to the bus at 4:30 and try to pull out a gun and shoot a cop. the mindset in the process of picking up his son from school. most criminal activities happen after 10:00 or 12:00. when i say a case, he said, 2:00 in the morning, the drug deal went bad but i don't believe this was an intention. whether he had a gun or not, let's be honest, he stutters and i don't know how fast the police

wanted him to move, what's not said is they were serving a warrant. they do it every tuesday and thursday for the last two months because the college behind this apartment. so a thing every tuesday and thursday and the warrant was not from mr. scott. but i'm thinking in my own mind, my own analogy since they did not know he was disabled, since they did not know he stuttered, i'm thinking that's why things got ugly. that's my own personal analogy and whether he had a gun or not, let's say he had a gun, do you think he pointed it at an officer? >> that's an important point. >> after the african-americans being struck down in the country today and in saying that, police release the video, mayor robert, so the kids will stop loothing because until we get proof, i hate to say it, the windows are going to keep getting broke. this is a nascar hall of fame window i'm looking at right now. it's not going to stop.

when it gets dark, the enemy's coming out. >> john -- >> it's very sad and it's very sad to see charlotte in this position. >> john -- we'll come back to you later. thank you for the update, sir. john barnett. true healing under god there. the politics of policing. donald trump reigniting the conversation around one of the country's most controversial policing tactics. >> i suggested stop and frisk and some people think it's a great idea and some people probably don't like it. it's worse than like afghanistan, the war-torn nations, it's more dangerous. >> the latest from the campaign trail. we will also have much, much more ahead from charlotte, north carolina. again, on the right side of your screen there, city leaders set to hold that news conference just moments from now as the

state, the city, rather, remains under a state of emergency. there's talk of a curfew in charlotte. first, some breaking news on the new york bombing suspect. new details on how badly he was injured and his condition right now. as you can see, i build the jet engines, and programmers teach them to talk. so yeah, ge is digital and industrial. so it's indigital. digidustrial. indigenous. shhhh... let's go with digital industrial. for now.

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back now on that breaking news in the case of the american charged with planting bombs in new york and new jersey. justice correspondent pete williams in the dc bureau. what do you have? >> a couple things. first of all, we've been told ahmad rahami in the shootout with police on monday in lyndon, new jersey, that led to his capture, we heard he was shot in the arm, the shoulder, and the leg, but it turns out that he was shot up to 11 times and that at least one of the rounds hit him in the torso and narrowly

missed vital organs. he's in much worse shape than we had originally thought. he's heavily sedated. he's had several surgeries. he's intubated. so it's going to be a while before the fbi is able to talk to him and several days before the initial appearance in court. the second thing is we've learned a little more detail about one of the many reasons why the fbi is eager to find two men who came upon the suitcase on 27th street that turned out to contain a pressure cooker bomb. two things about it. first of all, those who have seen the surveillance video and this is not the actual video but the two men from another surveillance camera, not where they found the suitcase but those who have seen that video say one of them goes by it. apparently, paying no attention to it at all and the other calls, they come back and reach in. one of them does, takes out the pressure cooker and sets it on the side walk but in a way that's not gingerly, that doesn't seem to be handling

cautiously a pressure cooker bomb. so they want to find them and one of the many reasons is that on the pressure cooker bomb, we knew the fbi said a dozen of ahmad rahami's fingertips but say there's prints from others as well and try to eliminate these two men to see if they handled it and try to figure out who those other fingerprints belong to. does that mean that others were involved in building that bomb or others merely touched it at some point not knowing it was going to be a bomb? all those are open questions but gives you additional insight into why they want to find them. >> shot 11 times, narrowly missed vital organs. do they think, are they confident rahami will make it? >> all signs that he will survive, yes. he's not in the condition where they think he could die. they believe he will survive. >> justice correspondent pete

williams with breaking news, new information on that rahami case. pete, thanks as always. the two recent shootings of black men by police officers bringing attention to the use of deadly force especially by minorities in this country. "the washington post" has been compiling data and found a nationwide increase in the first 6 months of this year over the same period last year. the paper also found blacks are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by cops than whites. the shootings in tulsa and charlotte are reverberating on the campaign trail. both candidates talking about what's happening. i want to bring in tramain lee and former special agent in charge of the atf. tramain, i want to start with you before we get to that. this idea raised in the last segment about the videotape being released. how far would that go in perhaps

keeping the peace in charlotte? >> i think we've seen in other cities where the more transparency you have, it certainly helps because the people can see for themselves. when you don't release video or evidence, when there's a lack of communication between the community and the police, it further fuels in the absence of truth and understanding, the paranoia and hysteria and anger but moving forward what the police do and how the city handle this are critical. will the national guard be downtown? because we saw last night and we've seen time and again when you draw that line in the street, you're almost challenging these young people who are already upset and angry. of course, we can say there's rogue actors and the police did a, b, and c but we talked about earlier. a lot of people feel the world doesn't hear their voices unless they burn and smash and now the truth is, we are more concern about the broken windows than

the broken bodies. that's the sentiment from the community. >> i want to play something donald trump said yesterday. he expressed sympathy and then called later in the day for the resurrection of an old nypd program. take a listen. >> but stop and frisk worked. we had tremendous shootings, they see a person possibly with a gun or think may have a gun, they will see the person, look, and take the gun away. they'll stop, they'll frisk and take the gun away. and they won't have anything to shoot with. >> that was from donald trump this morning, by the way. jim, why call for the reinstatement of a program that has been deemed ineffective by a number of watchdog groups? nearly 88% totally innocent, more than half of those stopped were black. >> that's an awful idea and really makes no sense. it's not going to help the

police. all police, when i was an officer, trained on terry vs. ohio. the seminole case for stop and frisk and you have to know the case. mr. trump doesn't know. he talks about seeing a guy with a gun. well, you see a guy with a gun on the street, you're going to go over there and take the gun and question him. if he doesn't have a permit, he arrests it. that's not stop and frisk. stop and frisk is you see criminalized behavior in the case, in the case at the bar, a 39 year veteran cleveland detective sees three men casing a place for a stick-up. he watches him go in front of the store, testifies at least 24 times among the three of them. and he knows they're going to rob the place so he approaches, he pats down one guy and there's a bulge in his left breast pocket and he forces him into the store, takes that gun, finds another gun on one of the other men.

terry cats and children are the names of the guys and he doesn't have it. the supreme court said it's a seizure when he stops him. it's a fourth amendment issue. mr. trump can't suspend the fourth amendment. the problem with stop and frisk as a general policy issued by, you know, presidents or commanders or police chiefs is that's wrong. it never was that by the court. it's an individualized police calculation based on the fixed set of circumstances. that should never be taken away from the police. i mean, i can tell you, it will save your life. the reason you have a stop and frisk is to prevent the officer from harm, prevent escape. so it's necessary, but it has to be an individualized thing, not a policy. let's go out and stop and frisk everybody on the street. that's like issuing a, let's go out and search everybody's house in the neighborhood. >> tramain, you've lived here for a while. stop and frisk was one of the

major causes for police and the policed in this city. hard to see how something like that nationwide would help, not hurt. >> not only have people who have paid attention including myself called it lazy policing but further divides and the gap becomes the canyon between the black community and the police. when you randomly stop every black or latino young man you see and only 1% with a weapon, simply doesn't work and it's hard to imagine this will go far in helping him, donald trump, his outreach to the black community. and one hand said, you're terrible, no school, what do you have to lose and let's bring back one of the most reputed policies in new york city history in terms of law enforcement. it won't work and i think people, especially in this community, but others like baltimore and other iterations of this.

>> the bottom of the screen, the news conference in charlotte set to start any moment from now. jim, a curfew in charlotte. how far would that go in helping the situation there? >> well, it's going to be hard to assist. i don't think they should press the national guard there. a dozen arrests, some broken windows, four officers hurt, a person shot critically but if you throw the national guard on the streets, that's not the answer. the charlotte p.d. got it pretty good last night and if you have some help from the north carolina state roopetroopers, o but keep the national guard there. it just ramps everything up. i don't think that's a good idea. they did a good job keeping it quiet, getting it tamped down, let the troopers come in. those are law enforcement officers, not military. they deal with this stuff. let them back up charlotte p.d., try to keep it down.

don't be rolling that out unless it's absolutely necessary. curfew, i don't know. i think they're going to have to assess that. people are going to want to march, you know, i know that's kind of a 50/50. i don't know that i would call for it necessarily tonight. i tried to let things get back to normal. you know that the thing is you want things to get back to normal. curfews and national guard on the street are not going to encourage things get back to normal. >> always appreciate your insight and tramain lee. i want to get your thoughts after this news conference. we continue to keep our eye on the podium there in charlotte, north carolina. the city rocked again. a second night of violence. charlotte's mayor, charlotte's police chief expected to provide an update here in the next few minutes. we'll bring that to you live.

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charlotte's police chief and mayor expected to speak to reporters and take questions in just a few moments. we'll go there live when it happens. right now though, i want to bring in katie peralta, the charlotte record. the paper of record there in the queen city. what are we seeing on the ground there this morning? >> well, it's mostly quiet this morning, actually. things kind of broke up. i understand early morning hours. i was off the streets by like, 1:00 a.m. but i'm old from my colleagues uptown that things calmed down a bit and considering a curfew for this evening. whether they do that, i'm not sure yet. >> any idea how that will be received on the ground among the protesters? >> i would presume not well, honestly. people are angry and they want a protest and they want to have the right to do that. you know, i'm not sure what exactly what would mean. would that mean they start gathering earlier in the night? would it mean they go elsewhere? i have no idea. i just cannot imagine that would

be well received here. >> my understanding is that you were on the ground last night talking to folks who were out protesting, specifically, what were they telling you that they wanted to see happen? >> well, the interesting thing is, you know, i heard the name scott tossed around a few times but also protesting for michael brown, you know, for alton sterling, for all of the shootings of african-americans, you know, the violence against them that's gone on in the past several years and i think it's just a culmination of all of these things. the injustice they're feeling and the police brutality. it's the whole black lives matter movement. which is much larger than just charlotte. and, you know, the fact that we had to see that here, you know, it's awful. and it was sad and it was violent and it was scary.

i hope that we don't have to have another one here in charlotte to have that conversation. >> do you get the sense we're going to see more protests tonight and in the days ahead? >> i think so, yeah. we went into the protest kind of thinking it wasn't going to be as bad as tuesday because of the elevated police presence. >> katie, let me cut you off. i'm sorry, mayor roberts is taking to the podium. >> for the city of charlotte. the events that we saw last night are not the charlotte that i know and love. they are not reflective of our community, of the deep seated traditions we have of collaboration and peace. we saw last night, also, a number of peaceful protests. our protests started peacefully and i want to emphasize that in charlotte, we have a long tradition of working together to

solve our problems. of working collaboratively, and i urge everyone to continue that tradition. i want to recognize in that spirit of collaboration that behind me stand a number of our community leaders, our state leaders, our county leaders and city leaders. we stand united in working together to move our city forward and i appreciate all of them being here today. thank you very much. i ask again for calm peace fful. we have a full and transparent investigation of the original incident and we are working very hard in the collaborative way to ensure the integrity of that investigation. we have also partnered with the state of north carolina for additional resources to care for our city and to secure the safety of our citizens.

the safety and security of our community as well as our law enforcement officers remains our top priority. today, our si city is open for business as usual and we let people know, we are here working, our buses are running. we are here to serve and the city is open. we are working with our partners and putting measures in place today to also provide for the protection of our city this evening. once again, i thank all of the community partners who have been working so hard with us to ensure this collaboration going forward. we saw some tremendous work in that area last night. i want to especially thank our religious leaders, our faith leaders, our community leaders who were out last night working so hard to keep the protests

peaceful. i'm now going to turn it over to the chief of police to provide more details. chief? >> as luck would have it, we're having technical issues when it's my turn to talk. so please be patient. are we ready? can you hear me? all right. everybody doing okay? good.

morning. first of all, i'm not here to defend a position. i'm here to give you some information. we have had a lot of things that transpired last night that we're still trying to piece together and that will make more sense once i get into the chronology of what exactly took place. yesterday at about 6:00 p.m., a group of peaceful protesters from marshall park moved towards the police headquarters building and begin to exercise their first amendment. this was a very peaceful demonstration. later on, additional. hey, there it is. additional protesters started to join the ranks of the initial peaceful protesters. and they begin to block some of the roadways as they headed towards the transit center. and the epicenter. at about 8:00 p.m., a group started to jump on vehicles in about the 700 block of east 7th street. and they began to damage

property at the epicenter. we deployed our civil emergency unit at that point to deescalate the situation and again, bring restored order. at about 8:30, we had officers who responded to north college street and east trade street for an assault with a deadly weapon call. one person's was located with an apparent gunshot wound and he was located there in the omni hotel. right now, that shooting victim's in critical condition. due to concerns around security, the victim was evacuated by our bear cat, our s.w.a.t. on the personnel carrier. we couldn't get the medic in at the time because of the size of the crowd. the victim was then transferred to medic and then transported to cmc maine with life-threatening

injuries. at that point, because of the size of the crowd, we deployed gas and that would have been at about 8:43 p.m. the reason i'm not defending the position is the shooting that took place, there's a lot of information about who did that shooting. we're reviewing video and we're assessing our people who are there as well because the allegation was made that one of our officers might have been involved. as i said before, guys, we're here to seek the truth so we're investigating that to find the truth. the absolute truth as best the evidence can show us. as soon as we were, once we were handling that situation, a group at around 9:00 p.m. began to move towards trade street and college street. we responded and dispersed those protesters there. then the transit center closed at 9:07 p.m.

our operations were moved to a nearby location so operations continued just not out of the transit center. and then a group moved towards the interstate 277, shut down the loop. we were able to get sop resoume resources out there to start mitigating that situation. additionally, at about 11:55, the light rail traffic was halted because of the crowd that was amassing around the light rail. we gave additional orders to disperse and protesters continue to damage property and to throw objects at officers. at 12:30 this morning, leadership, the mayor of the city of charlotte and leaders of the county, board of commissioners in particular and our governor allowed for us to declare a state of emergency.

the reason i sought that status is quite clear. i wanted to protect the property and protect our people, our officers were our priority as well as the property here in our center city in particular. the role, because i am incident commander of this operation based on this designation, the role of the shp is to help us with traffic and protect the infrastructure. the role of the marbnational gu is to help us around tru infrastructure. we had quite a few businesses damaged and our intent is to protect those assets so we don't suffer further damage. at about 3:00 a.m., the protests subsided. the damage to property subsided and people began to disperse

significantly. overall, we had two officers who had eye injuries that were relatively minor and three were treated for heat-related issues. we had a total of nine civilians according to medic that were injur injured in this incident as well. we made a total of 44 arrests. charges range from failure to disperse to assault to breaking and entering. basically, breaking into businesses and stealing. as i said, we're going to continue to review the video footage because i do not believe we have all the criminal suspects to charge with various crimes at this point and will not rest until we bring all people to justice. that's what happened in the past. that's how we got to right now. now, i want to give you a glimpse at what we do moving forward. we have a full compliment of our

civil emergency unit ready to continue working to prevent violent crime, assault of behavior and property crime as well. we have our officers assigned to foot patrol, bike patrol, enduro, dirt bikes and patrolling at our mobile ceu vans. you will see our heavy uniform presence, obviously. our aviation unit will continue to be our eyes in the sky and give us an aerial view that we couldn't have otherwise. we continue to use our realtime crime center to give us a technological advantage with roughly a thousand cameras that help protect our city. as i said before, the national guard and shp will help us with infrastructure. they'll help provide protection for our buildings so we can avoid further damage. this allows us and my cmpd

resources to focus on those who are assaulting our people and damaging property, as i said. despite this commitment, this great commitment by state and local resources, we still need to lean on our greatest partner, our strongest asset, and that is our community. we ask that you continue to let us know when you see things that are happening that are inappropriate and where you see crimes occurring. we appreciate the fact that people are posting things that they see because i can tell you, we use those opportunities to fully investigate all crimes and all allegations that are made relative to what those are in a chaotic scene. i'd be remiss if i didn't thank again the community for your support because i can tell you the vast majority are showing us the supportive situation that i

t think is unique to charlotte and now the heroes, the national guard, and the officers, state highway patrol to be a part of protecting our fine city moving forward. thank you. >> good morning again. let me start by saying, fancy meeting all of you here today. my name is willie rachford and i work with the charlotte mecklenburg community and i have never witnessed the things in the past 48 hours. this is not charlotte. this is not how we have operated as a city in the past. charlotte is a community we work toward tolerance and we work towards understanding. charlotte is a community where we strive to leave no one behind and to make assurances that everyone regardless of their

station in life has an equal opportunity to succeed. charlotte is a community that, together, seeks the truth. i'm urging each of you, members of our community, to come together in peace. we are a peaceful people. this is our community and i expect everyone to come together to do what is right, to do what is just, and what is based on factual information and not speculation. let's work together to seek the truth, find the solutions and continue to build an inclusive community where respect and peace prevail. and at this time, i think we will take some questions. >> actually, if you'll bear with me, before we take questions, i've been asked to repeat some of my opening comments before we had the microphones working. i will do that really quickly. i just want to reiterate, this has been a difficult period for our city. the events of last night are not

the charlotte that we know and love. we also, by the way, saw a number of peaceful protests in our city last night and i want to emphasize in charlotte, we have a long tradition of working together to solve our problems. and i urge everyone to continue that tradition. i reach out especially to thank the faith leaders and other leaders who were actually on the streets last night working very hard to provide a buffer, to deescalate violence, to put themselves out there on behalf of our community with just an incredible love for our city and we appreciate their efforts. i ask again for calm, peaceful demonstrations. it is important we have a full and transparent investigation of the original incident and we are working hard, collaboratively, to ensure the integrity of the investigation and partner with the state traditional resources, safety and security of our community as well as our law

enforcement officers remains our top priority. i want to reiterate, the city is open for business today. our transit system is running. our businesses are open. our center city is here to welcome you. we are working with our partners and putting measures many plaino provide protection for the city this evening as well. and i, again, appreciate everyone getting the word out and talking to folks about working collaboratively, reminding folks that the family, the scott family's wishes have also gone out in a statement for peaceful protests, for peace and calm and the investigation to follow its course. now, chief, we'll open up for a few questions. >> hang on, take them one at a time. >> sandy's going to be. yep.

[ reporter asking question ] >> that is exactly why we made the declaration that we did. our issue has been we couldn't be as responsive as we needed to be, as quickly as we needed to be because our resources were being pulled in so many directions. so what we ask you to do is as soon as you stop, the ideal thing to do is make sure you stay in your vehicle. lock your doors, and help is coming. our issue has been it's taking a while to get to you because of the limited resources we had were tied up. and now because of the partnership that we have with our state agencies, shp and national guard, that is not as significant an issue. and that bore itself out last night. we were able to open the loop up

pretty quickly, the 277 loop. >> i'll come to you, sir. there's a lot of questions. [ reporter asking question ] >> question was to me, correct? we were in conversation with the governor early in the morning. during the day, the central city, center city was peaceful and during the day, we had indication of peaceful protest. we saw some peaceful protest. we're a team here in charlotte.

we're a team. i rely on my experts to give me the appropriate advice at the appropriate time for the appropriate resources needed. i was in constant contact with the police, both chief of police, fire chief, medic, all the folks who are first respondents. we made the decision when needed at the appropriate time. >> sir, we'll come to you next. >> yes, sir? [ reporter asking question ] >> could i take them one at a time so i remember? we'll release it. ultimately, as i said before, our practice is not to release but to allow for the party who feels they've been mistreated in any way to see that. a request has come our way to do just that and we're going to honor that request but other things going on too, to be quite

frank with you, whether there's an outside investigation, and at that point, it would halt what we're doing moving forward as far as releasing anything, so right now, what we're going to do is honor the request made with the family because it's still in my purview to do so but beyond that, it will be much more collaborative than what i can release. no, sir, i'm saying, they made a request to see it and we're looking to accommodate that request. >> my question is, it shows -- would that possibly quell certain violence? >> i would like to think that, but i'll say this. it's your truth, my truth, and the truth. some people made up minds about what happened and there will be an update later this afternoon about more additional information we're getting. but that still didn't change the

mindset in the perspective of some who want to break the law and tear down our city. so if there is compelling information that i thy heink he we'll show it but i'll be very intentional about protecting the integrity of the investigation and in so doing, not releasing the video. >> but other cities -- [ reporter asking question ] >> what i can tell you is we release it when we believe it is a compelling reason, but i'm not going to jeopardize the investigation and right now, even though we're investigating, it probably won't be long-term because the request has also been made an objective party, the fbi, move forward in the investigation. i'm not going to release anything that would be on somebody else to release, sir. >> next question right here.

>> yes? [ reporter asking question ] >> i don't believe it allowed anything. i believe what happened is people were violating the law. they were in huge numbers and something that we can't anticipate but we had reevaluated and restructured our staffing model. we increased significantly the people that we were going to deploy and we felt pretty comfortable we could handle what we were going to encounter. when that became an issue for us and exceeded our capacity, we did what we had to do to make sure we got the resources, so we ask for this declaration. that was the sequence. thank you, sir. >> thank you very much. question here?

[ reporter asking question ] >> there's a difference between disclosure, allowing someone to see it and that is the party that feels they've been aggrieved but release would be to the masses and that's what i'm not going to do. what i can tell you that i saw and i was very clear when i talked about this before, is the video does not give me absolute definitive visual evidence that would confirm that a person is pointing a gun. i did not see that in the videos that i reviewed. so what i can tell you though is when taking in the totality of the other evidence, it supports what we've heard in the version of the truth we gave about the circumstances that happened that led to the death of mr. scott.

again, this designation allows for that. i don't intend to use it unless it becomes an issue and we need to clear the streets sooner. it depends what we encounter. i can't tell you a definitive time. it depends on what we see and allow for public safety. >> question here. [ reporter asking question ] >> i appreciate your passion but i never said full transparency. i said transparency and that's in the eye of the beholder. i can tell you the party right now who really is my priority in honoring their request is the people who really are the victims of the shooting. so what i'm going to do is honor

that request and tell you, if you think i say we should display a victim's worst day for public consumption, that is not the transparency i'm speaking of, sir. [ reporter asking question ] >> i can't speak to why they would do ha. that was not a recommendation that came for me. i think it should be business as usual. without a doubt. [ reporter asking question ]

>> sure. sure. we've done that in the past too when we saw the need. so right now, we don't see the need to shut the city down at a specific hour. yes, ma'am. my answer doesn't change. we don't see a need to definitively shut the city down at a specific hour because we can't anticipate. what we do know is we have the resources now to protect infrastructure and be a lot more proactive in arresting people who commit criminal offenses. >> question here. [ reporter asking question ]

>> we're talking about both. and i think as our chief has stated, it's a fluid situation and absolutely, there are certain times of the day, absolutely, it's safe. people are walking on the veet. people are conducting business as normal, as usual. we are monitoring the situation. we have eyes on the ground. we have great feedback. i think you've heard from our chief the resources deployed, the continued collaboration with the community that we are determined, the safety of our citizens is the highest priority and we can look at experience. we can't predict what will happen. many conversations are going on in the community and many efforts. and i applaud our community leaders, many efforts to reach out to folks who are angry to get them to stand down even today while e